Gooch said there are heavy "mast crops" some years, while other years, acorn production drops off.

It's part of the natural cycle for the trees. In comparison, sugar maples and ash trees had a heavy seed crop this year, while last year the red oak - the one with the pointed lobes - was the one responsible for plenty of seeds.

Gooch said he has never seen sugar maples and ash trees produce as much seed as they have this season, calling it "incredible."

"It just happens to be its cycle for the species. Things run their course," Gooch said. "I think this has just happened throughout time. You have a heavy seed crop, then you go a few years and have nothing. I think it's the nature of trees."

"Trees react to stress events and react by producing more seed ... We've gone through a lot of drought. People forget because we’re having a lot of moisture. Three of the last five years were drought conditions and the reaction to that is to produce more seed to protect the species," Gooch said.

Gooch said the summer of 2009 was very dry, and as a result, there was an acorn abundance last year. It remains to be seen how this year's unusual weather will affect next year's acorn crop.

The excessive moisture made trees drop their leaves early this year, cutting short the fall foliage season. As for the wildlife that consumes acorns, Trudy Renaud, assistant education director at Norcross Wildlife Sanctuary in Wales, said the acorn shortage will impact deer and wild turkeys the most, as they love acorns.

Deer in particular will eat "stuff they're not supposed to," such as plants and flowers in people's gardens. She said they also will turn to spruce trees, which have no nutritional value for them. She said it will take another three to five years for the oak trees to produce another heavy mast crop.

Leslie A. Duthie, a horticulturalist at Norcross Wildlife Sanctuary, said there should be plenty of hickory nuts and berries for the small animals who usually dine on acorns throughout the winter.

There is another potential side-effect from a lack of acorns – a decrease in the population of the acorn-eating white-footed mice, a preferred host for the deer tick that carries Lyme Disease.

Joseph S. Elkinton, a professor of entomology at the University of Massachusetts-Amherst, said the numbers of white-footed mice go up and down with the acorn crops, but whether that means there will be fewer instances of Lyme Disease remains to be seen.

White-footed mice are the main reservoirs of infection, according to Stephen M. Rich, head of the department of plant, soil and insect sciences at the University of Massachusetts-Amherst.

He said the number of Lyme cases tend to go up every year, as more people are aware of the disease and its signs. Fifty percent of adult deer ticks are infected with Lyme Disease, he said, a statistic that remains steady every year. The ticks contract the disease through the white-footed mouse, which harbors the bacterium.